SSTI Digest

Tulsa Innovation Labs has received a $50 million commitment from the George Kaiser Family Foundation to help develop the city of Tulsa as a technology hub. The funds will go towards assisting the new organization to support local talent, startups and academic innovation.

This week’s release of the Annual Survey of Manufacturers (ASM) from the Census Bureau provides the most detailed statistics on the U.S. manufacturing sector and provides a snapshot of where the sector stood prior to the pandemic. Based on the 2018 summary statistics, the Census Bureau offers the following preliminary insights which can also be seen in the image below.

With efforts underway to return people to jobs, the time is ripe to rethink our approach to the workforce. Instead of returning to the way things were, now is the time to re-think the kind of country we want to have says Carl Van Horn, founding director of the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Van Horn and Jane Oates, president of WorkingNation, presented their ideas for workforce recovery and lessons learned from the Great Recession during a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Center of Workforce Development webinar yesterday.

The NIH’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program (HRHR) has the potential to overturn fundamental paradigms, but historically the applicant and awardee pools have not fully represented the demographic and geographic diversity across the U.S. biomedical workforce, says the NIH’s deputy director for extramural research.

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech) — the state agency responsible for strengthening the commonwealth’s position as a leading hub for innovation and entrepreneurship — recently released the 2019 edition of its annual report, The Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy, which includes an updated list of the 10 leading technology states  and a detailed special analysis on entrepreneurial ecosystems. As a globally recognized center of science- and technology-based innovation, communities across the U.S. can learn from Massachusetts’ successes as well as from the challenges the state faces in further strengthening its entrepreneurship ecosystem.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently released its report on the state of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) — authorized by the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act of 2003 to coordinate the nanotech-related R&D activities of 26 federal agencies — finding that although the U.S. has maintained a strong program it is increasingly challenged by international competitors. Specifically, the report names China as the primary contender for the U.S.’ spot at the top and attributes its success to strong Chinese leadership and commitment to substantial investment in the field. Looking toward the future, the authors reevaluated the NNI’s stated goals, identified three priorities to ensure the NNI vision can be carried out moving forward, and conclude with five key recommendations needed to meet these priorities and carry out the NNI vision.

State innovations in the development and implementation of clean energy programs have received national attention with the announcement of the 2020 State Leadership in Clean Energy Award winners. Presented by the Clean Energy State Alliance (CESA), the awards recognize state and municipal programs’ accomplishments in the clean energy field.

In separate announcements this week, the Department of Defense Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA) and the Economic Development Administration (EDA) revealed funding opportunities that can assist efforts to transform American innovations and support the growth of new companies.

Department of Defense

With the nation in the midst of a recession following 128 months of economic expansion, many are asking how we will find our way out. Turning to a long-time strength for the nation and relying on our manufacturing industry is one way.

The U.S. bioscience industry is helping to meet the challenges presented by the pandemic through two, key characteristics: its innovative capacity to address global challenges, and its role as a consistent economic stalwart, with a track record of generating high-quality jobs and growth that has acted as a key buffer during prior economic recessions.

Despite a school year disrupted by the pandemic, teams of students from across the nation submitted a host of ideas in the latest Biomimicry Institute’s Youth Design Challenge (YDC). The YDC brings the process of nature-inspired design into the classroom of middle and high school students, who collaborate in teams to solve sustainability problems using nature as a guide.

The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings has measured 768 universities around the world against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Combining research and activity metrics, the 2020 rankings place institutions from New Zealand and Australia in the top four spots, with U.S. universities holding 14 places within the top 200.